Snow’n’Rail Prices Published

Snow’n’Rail is the popular scheme organised every year by the Swiss Railways which provides a significant discount on the combined lift and public transport ticket prices for over 40 resorts. The booklets listing the offers are available from stations in local language versions, and the online brochure also provides details in English.

There are no new resorts for 2016/7 although les Portes du Soleil is back after a one year absence. Toggenburg, Hoch-Ybrig and Val D’Anniviers have fallen off the scheme, sadly, and a couple of minor resorts are now only listed online.

After modest increases last year, it is perhaps not surprising to see significant increases in some of the offers. Adelboden, the 4 Vallées, Saas-Fee and many Graubünden resorts have seen hikes around 10%. However Zermatt has kept prices flat, as have a number of other resorts, including Les Diablerets, Leysin, Villars, Grindelwald, Wengen, Mürren, Gstaad, Meiringen, Sörenberg, Melchsee-Frutt, Klewenalp, Airolo and Stoos – some routes from Luzern have even fallen slightly.

Tickets can still get pricey, even with the discounts, especially if you do not have a half-price rail card. Without the additional discount, a full day skiing or snowboarding in Zermatt from Basel or Zurich will set you back around 270 SFr. Conversely, with a half-price card, a day in Engelberg will give you change from a 100 Sfr note. Meiringen, Sörenberg and Klewenalp, in particular, provide very good value for the extent of piste available.

For more details of the new season prices visit the resort pages at SwissWinterSports.

15/11/201530/05/2023

Snow’n’Rail 2015-16

How To Teach Kids Healthy Eating Habits

Be a good role model, set family meal times and involve your kids in meal planning Family eating at dinner table.

You’ve probably heard the old adage, “You are what you eat.” While your child isn’t going to literally morph into a fruit salad or a loaf of garlic bread, the food choices they make (and that you make for them) have a very literal impact on their bodies. Try out these prostadine reviews.

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Poor eating habits in childhood can follow your kids well into adulthood, causing health issues and difficult relationships with food. By teaching kids about food that’s good for their health when they’re little, you can set them up for a lifetime of wellness.

“It’s never too soon to start teaching kids good eating habits,” says pediatric dietitian Diana Schnee, MS, RD, CSP, LD. Check more from these cortexi reviews.

Healthy eating habits and tips

Food serves a lot of purposes. It can be tasty, fun and culturally important, and eating with loved ones provides opportunities for bonding and togetherness. But food is also science. And kids need healthy foods — full of the right vitamins and minerals — in the right amounts, to help them grow.

“Food is the first type of medicine,” adds pediatric cardiologist Christina Fink, MD. “Kids need good nutrition to live, grow and be healthy. But inadequate or improper types of nutrition can lead to childhood obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, prediabetes and further issues once in adulthood.”

These tips can help you teach your kids eating habits that will equip them for a healthy future and a positive relationship with food. Read more about keto diet.

1. Set family meal times

Kids thrive on routines, so try to eat together as a family and serve meals and snacks around the same time every day if possible. This way, kids are less likely to graze and overeat. It’s also a good time to teach them healthy eating habits and table manners.

“Eating as a family is good for social, emotional and developmental purposes, and having meals together is an opportunity to teach kids about portions,” Dr. Fink says. “For example, you can show them that half our plates should be non-starchy vegetables and some fruit.”

Limit meals to a reasonable length of time, no longer than 30 minutes. You can even set a timer to reinforce this expectation and help kids stay focused during meals.

2. Embrace breakfast

Is breakfast really the most important part of the day? Well, they’re all pretty important — but eating a healthy breakfast gives your child the fuel they need to make it through the day and help them grow and develop properly.

“It doesn’t have to be a large or elaborate meal,” Dr. Fink says, “just something that’s nutritious to get their bodies going and fuel their metabolism for the day.”

Definitely don’t stress about the idea of making an elegant breakfast from scratch every morning. Instead, turn to easy, kid-friendly, dietitian-approved breakfast ideas, like whole-wheat toast with natural peanut butter or plain Greek yogurt sprinkled with a fiber-rich, low-sugar cereal and a handful of fruit.

3. Address picky eating early

It can feel nearly impossible to deal with kids’ picky eating preferences, but with intentionality and patience, you can nip it in the bud early.

Continue to offer a variety of foods during meals to encourage exploration and allow for exposure. Schnee says it’s good to let kids (even picky toddlers) choose from what’s on their plate, and it’s OK if they choose just one or two things. But don’t make separate meals for picky eaters.

“You’re not a short-order cook,” she says. “Make a decision about what you will serve, and stick to it. If your child asks for something else, you can explain that it is not on the menu for the day but offer to prepare it another night.”

For kids who are in kindergarten and older, Dr. Fink suggests instituting a three-bite rule. “Your child should try at least three bites of a food, just to give it a chance. Even then, they will need to try the food 15 or more times before they can say they truly don’t like it,” she says. “Sometimes, it’s just trial and error to figure out their palate.”

26/01/201526/01/2015

Break in Braunwald

I had to go down to Switzerland for some business and thought I would take in a day’s skiing, even though the weather didn’t look good and I had a cold. The trip was painless and it made a nice break despite my heavy head. I took a bed on the excellent City Nightline on Thursday night from Utrecht to Basel for around fifty euros and was in Basel before 7am. If it wasn’t for the business, I could easily have been on the slopes somewhere like Wengen within a couple more hours.
The next morning I got up early and took a train across to Zurich where I bought a Snow’n’Rail combined ticket at SFR 60. Despite all the talk of the cost of the Swiss Franc, somehow sixty francs for a scenic trip up the Linthal valley and a day in one of the most pleasant small, car-free resorts seems to me good value. Braunwald is not a huge resort, but it does have a good range of skiing as well as plenty for non-skiers to do – indeed, despite it being a Saturday, the slopes were almost empty and there seemed to be more tobogganists and winter walkers below the Eggstöcke than skiers and snowboarders. It has struck me before how unusual a resort so easy to get to from Zurich is so quiet at weekends, with most weekend warriors preferring to go to Hoch-Ybrig or Flumserberg. The trip really is a doddle, with the funicular railway right in the Linthalbahn Braunwald railway station. A quirky feature of Braunwald is the configuration of gondolas used in the resort, with one cableway operating them in pairs, another in quads and a final one alternating with chairlifts on the same cable.

The weather wasn’t great so I had a leisurely day on the slopes. I later saw replays of Lara Gut winning in St Moritz, but the self-service restaurant at Grotzenbüel put up a big screen to let us watch the racing live at Kitzbühel on the shortened Streif course off the Hahnenkamm.

After a pleasant day on the slopes, a leisurely train journey back down the valley and a meal at Zurich Station’s NordSee fish restaurant it was time to get on the sleeper back to the Netherlands in the company of two charming Chinese ladies. The fare was cheaper than from Basel bizarrely, some 44 euros.

17/12/201417/12/2014

Christmas Ski Conditions

I reported last week on the English Show that the warm weather and dry conditions were hitting the ability of resorts to make a decent base, and that even a cold snap in mid-December would be followed by unseasonably warm weather. A week later, my prognosis seems to have been borne out, and even Courchevel in France has cancelled events because of poor snow conditions. My advice remains “go high”. You can find which resorts have the highest runs at the Swiss Winter Sports and Snow and Rail websites – on the resort finders you can click on the columns to sequence the tables by any field. High resorts like Zermatt and Verbier, for example, benefit from high glaciers and villages above the ski line, so you can be sure you can ski all the way back into the village. Freezing levels seem to be hovering around 1500m, so any runs above that altitude looks fine, although the snow forecast for the next couple of days comes with warm weather so the snow may turn to precipitation on even some middle stations. The temperature then dips a little and gives way to a period of sunny weather over Christmas where you can be sure the resorts will desperately be churning out the artificial snow on runs where they can establish a base. The good news, or bad news if you plan to ski over the New Year, is that the weather will change after Boxing Day, with blizzards expected by New Year’s Eve and, although the temperatures will still be a little on the high side, this should ensure good snow cover right down to the high valleys into January.

Austria has some glaciers but on the whole the resorts and runs are low, and the country has suffered from too little or not enough snow, with temperatures too mild to use snow-making machines. Italy has fared a little better, and I have had good reports from Cervinia. France should be OK if you go to somewhere high like Tignes.

It is a shame for many resorts, as some visitors will surely cancel plans to ski or snowboard. There seems to have been something of a resurgence too, with most resorts reporting higher levels of planned hotel occupancy over Christmas than last year, especially in Switzerland.

Ski Pizol
I’m spending Christmas in Bad Ragaz for Pizol. The valley run to Wangs probably won’t be open or much fun if it is, but since I am on the other side of the mountain, that is no great loss. There is also an easy backcountry run from the top of Pizol you can walk up to without skins, although you will need to carry your skis or board beyond the last lift. I also plan to spend a few days in Chur which has easy access to some of the best resorts in Graubünden ahead of the New Year – plenty of altitude nearby in resorts like Flims/Laax.

Many pages at my web site have webcams so you can check out the snow conditions for yourself. If they don’t follow the links to the resort web sites in case they have any other web cams set up.